Written by:
Karla Nagy
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 10#8
Historically, finding comfort in the church has been difficult at best, and impossible at its worst, for many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. But that doesn’t keep those with a strong faith and a strong sense of justice from fighting for acceptance.
Millie Holden (not her real name), 48, is part of an open group of gay men and lesbians attending the same Midwestern seminary. Holden grew up in a fundamentalist church where all messages coming from the pulpit regarding homosexuality were negative. She first became aware of her feelings for girls at the tender age of 5, when she developed a crush on her older brother’s girlfriend. By the time Holden entered junior high, she knew she was queer, and by the time she began college at age 18, she had started to be open about it.
As powerful as her identity as a lesbian, however, was her call to God’s service. “I was one of those kids who played preacher,” Holden says, laughing. Her mood becomes somber as she continues. “I took an aptitude test in high school, and I remember sitting across from my guidance counselor as he told me it indicated one of the careers I was suited to was the ministry. I also remember him laughing as he told me, because, he said, ‘We know that’s impossible because you’re a girl.’ I was furious with my counselor for telling me I couldn’t do something because of my gender. And I was furious with God, because I was trying very hard to be agnostic at that time in my life.”
But God and the church continued to be an important part of Holden’s life, even when she didn’t think she believed anymore. “I was 36 before I began to think about ordained ministry as something to which I might be called,” says Holden. “I remember thinking God had to be pulling a fast one on me! It took another four years before I began to talk to clergy and begin the process in earnest.” She was 47 when she finally entered the seminary she attends, located in a large city in the Midwest.
Holden says the school has been very supportive of the gay and lesbian students, both individually and as a group. Still, when she sought the advice of a member of the administration regarding her taking part in this article, she was urged to remain anonymous, though she wasn’t especially discouraged from contributing. “We’re in a church that’s still struggling with this issue, and it’s such a volatile issue,” she explains. “The advisor just didn’t want me to risk my ordination.”
Even so, facing the church hasn’t been her toughest battle. “Coming out as a Christian to my gay friends and community was more difficult than it ever was coming out as a lesbian,” says Holden. “Because the church has rejected and condemned us for as long as it has, some see it as collusion with the enemy. I felt the same way for a long time.”
Such conflict is common among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who have been raised within a strong religious belief system. The struggle between condemnation of self and condemnation of God often results in gays rejecting entirely any concept of organized religion or worship. As in Holden’s case, the anger and self-imposed exile can make returning to the fold, so to speak, a difficult and protracted process.
“I think there’s a lot of appropriate anger and frustration,” says the Rev. Greg Dell, pastor of the Broadway United Methodist Church in Chicago. Dell, a United Methodist minister for the past 29 years, is one of two pastors in the denomination to have served in a “Reconciling Congregation,” which openly invites and welcomes all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender.
“I don’t think there’s any question the queer community should be, at the very least, suspicious, and in a more healthy way, angry and frustrated at organized religion,” declares Dell. “It’s been a particularly powerful instrument of oppression and injury for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The church has been horrendous in terms of what it has done to people of difference. It’s done that to women, and white churches have done it to people of color, and the church has to bear responsibility for that.”
Few churches, it seems, are ready to do so, however. The Baptist denomination recently voted to exclude women from serving as ministers, even though it has already ordained females. The Vatican, on the heels of conceding gay Catholics actually exist, also censured a priest and nun — ordered in May to cease ministering to gays — by forbidding them to speak to anyone about their ministry. Dell himself recently spent a year in suspension of his ordination credentials, punishment for performing a service of holy union for two gay men in his congregation, something that had not been prohibited by the denomination until its 1996 General Conference.
Rita Henry, 49, has been a staunch Catholic her entire life. Growing up in a small farming community near DeKalb, Ill., home of Northern Illinois University, she says she was in denial regarding her sexual identity until she was about 19 or 20. “Our parish priest had a heart attack, and a priest from Northern came to fill in,” Henry recalls. “And he talked about homosexuals. I remember him standing at the pulpit and saying, ‘It’s not that far away from you. It could be your son or daughter, your mother or father, and if it is, you must love that person the same as you always have.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’ And I never left the church. He’s what kept me in the church.”
So when Henry met nursing student Joy Martin three years ago and the two fell in love, they decided they wanted a holy union in a Catholic church. “Somewhere in the back of my mind — way, way back in my head — I always knew I would find someone and get married,” Henry says.
Martin, whose family had recently moved to DeKalb, had yet to join a church in her new community. Raised as a Nazarene, she had been a member of a Pentecostal church during high school. Though she knew at about age 10 she was gay, Martin says she never felt any conflict between her religious beliefs and her homosexuality.
“I just thought, God made me the way I am, so I never had any problem,” she says matter-of-factly.
With Chicago only an hour away, Henry called all over the city, determined to find a Catholic priest willing to perform a holy union. “I made phone calls to every diocese in the area,” she declares. “And every time, I got, ‘Oh, no. We don’t bless holy unions.’ But we kept looking.”
At the 1998 gay pride march in Chicago, they met Father Tom Abel, then pastor of the Old Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary Magdalene, in the Chicago suburb of Lombard. “He was riding in the parade in the back of a pickup truck,” Henry recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! All that searching, and there he was. So I ran after the truck until I caught him and got his card.”
The Old Roman Catholic Church has been separated from the Holy Roman Catholic Church since the early 1700s and doesn’t consider itself under papal jurisdiction. Abel, openly gay, has been a priest for five years. He lives with his partner of six years, who also worships with him.
The decision of any Old Roman parish to acknowledge and accept gays is mostly left to its priest, who is generally allowed to minister as he sees fit. This is true at St. Mary Magdalene. “We’re an open, active Catholic gay ministry, created to give honor and glory to God,” declares Abel. “Everyone is equal in the eyes of God.”
The congregation at Mary Magdalene is small, he says, with about 15 members who are gay. His presence in the pride parade was an attempt to attract new members.
Despite these things, Abel doesn’t view himself as a radical. “I’m actually a moderate in relation to religion in general,” he asserts.
Even so, in order to engage in such activities, a priest must have support of his governing bishop, and not all are as accepting as Mary Magdalene’s archbishop. “Some of them forget our mission, which is to bring people closer to God. Discrimination makes gays turn away,” he says. “But their faith can be reinvigorated. There’s no reason not to feel a relationship with Jesus.”
Martin decided to pursue her relationship with Jesus by converting to Catholicism. Both she and Henry attended Abel’s parish in Lombard, with Martin spending an hour before Mass each Sunday for four months learning the principles of the faith. They held their holy union on April 1, 2000, at St. Mary Magdalene in Lombard, with Abel officiating. With Henry sporting a formal tux and Martin in a flowing white gown, the service was witnessed by a standing-room-only crowd of family and friends. The two women say they were a bit overwhelmed by the response, never expecting so many people to attend. But they both agree, the service has added a great deal to their relationship.
About two months after the Martin-Henry holy union, Abel and his partner moved to San Diego to pursue employment. Because of the typically small membership in Old Roman Catholic parishes, pastors usually hold full-time jobs; Abel works in the human resources field. At the time of his departure, he hadn’t found a San Diego-based parish in need of pastor, and the fate of Mary Magdalene was uncertain. Henry and Martin say they’ve found another gay-friendly congregation in Hanover Park, also a suburb of Chicago, which they plan to join.
As for Dell, who is married with one grown child, the commitment to continue embracing all of humanity is as strong as ever. “I’m not pollyannaish,” he says. “I’ve been spat on, beaten on, knocked down, arrested. I’ve had hateful things said to me. I’ve had my life threatened. I’m not naïve about the capacity of evil and fear in the human family. But neither am I naïve about the capacity for fair-mindedness and goodness. I believe there are many more good and kind-hearted people than is often perceived.”
On the day his suspension officially took effect, Dell began a one-year stint as director of In All Things Charity, an organization formed to campaign to strike down the church ordinance prohibiting holy unions. “I think the Methodist Church has made a very clear stand regarding not only its position on gays and lesbians, but also its position on holy unions. It’s turned a corner, and it’s a nasty corner.” Dell has finally returned to his position as pastor at the Broadway Church and says he intends to continue to perform holy unions.
“Do we stay in the denomination, or do we leave?” Dell queries. “You don’t stay in an abusive relationship, whether it’s with a person or a family or an institution. So what’s left for me to sort out … is whether we are in an abusive relationship, and if we are, do we find another way to face the struggle than through the United Methodist Church?”
Indeed, some of the most strident resistance regarding the gay and lesbian issue comes not from the members of congregations, but from other clergy, such as what happened to Dell. Holden, too, knows first-hand about homophobia in the clergy. “At age 22, I tried to get back to the church,” she says. “I found a pastor, and I thought I had a pretty good relationship with him. But when I told him I was a lesbian, he told me I had to leave the community. Another church said I would be welcome to worship with them, but only if I remained celibate. There have been some painful years before I finally reached a place of peace with the issue of being gay and being one of God’s children.”
Holden hopes she and her fellow gay and lesbian seminarians can help bring about a shift in their denomination’s acknowledgement and treatment of gays, as well as change some people’s views about homosexuality in general. She says it’s already begun to happen in the seminary. The group has been formally recognized as a student group. And their partners have been welcomed into the spouses’ support group, as well.
Now that she’s found her way back, Holden is determined to stay in her denomination, even though issues such as the ordination of homosexuals and the recognition and blessing of our committed relationships have yet to be resolved.
“Yes, I want to see a change in the church, and I’m actively working for that — but within the framework of the church, not outside,” she states emphatically. “I hope that I will be a clergy member who will seek justice for all who are marginalized, gay and straight, both by society and by the church. I hope that my example might help some people begin to see things differently. I want to be a channel through which the Holy Spirit can bring transformation of hearts and minds.”
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